Tag Archives: borderline

Two months ago today I was in a severe car accident. It was just me. I was drunk. I don’t remember anything from the actual accident. Partly because of the drinking. But mostly because I sustained a severe concussion. I was in an out of consciousness. I flipped my car down a hill. I vaguely remember the firefighters there trying to get me out of the car. The next thing I remember was being in the hospital. Miraculously I didn’t break anything. Even luckier still, I didn’t get a citation for the accident or a DUI. I still don’t know how. But that’s the truth. They told me the only reason I survived was because I had been wearing my seatbelt.

During my stay in the ER they did a complete CT scan on me. Everything turned out normal, except for the fact that I had an abnormal amount of urine in my bladder. I have battled kidney stones and infections for years now, but after this, my doctor began to become concerned. So I was sent to a urologist and testing. They determined that there is an extreme amount of blood in my urine. Looking back over my records, there has always been blood in my urine. Every time it was chalked up to the fact that I had a kidney stone and pain when my urine was tested. But now, it was raising concern as it was a pattern that before had gone unnoticed.

I am still going through testing. My bladder is three times normal size. It is severely inflamed inside and bleeding. I am having constant bladder and kidney pain, which is abnormal. At first they dismissed the idea of cancer because they said I’m too young. But now, as all other possible causes are being ruled out, it is becoming more likely.

To say I am terrified would be an understatement. The irony of all of it is that for the past couple of years I have fought so hard to control the BPD. I have fought to keep myself alive. I have fought against the pull of the abyss. I have fought to create a better life for myself. I thought BPD would be my life’s greatest battle. But in this, I am powerless. I fought to keep myself alive against myself. But I may be facing down a battle that I have no control over. I might have to fight against unseen forces that I can’t quantify or explain. I am scared. I am lost. I am at a loss for words.

I guess it’s about time I talk about some of the stuff in my life. I’m not yet ready to talk about my own health issues that I am currently dealing with. I feel like putting them out in the open would make it more real. And I’m not ready for that. Yet. So I will pick another topic that has been buried inside me for the last two weeks. I feel like it is eating me alive. And maybe, I hope, that getting it out will help me deal with some of the emotions. Quantify them. Break them open into the sunlight.

I have had thoughts of killing myself for more years than I can count. It is a known feeling to me. It is not out of the ordinary and I have come to know the feeling well. But I have never known the feeling of wanting to kill someone else. Now, please, understand I do not mean that in an absolute literal sense. You do not need to call the police or think that you will see me end up on the nightly news. But, hear me out. These emotions are new to me and I am struggling to find the words for them.

I guess I should start from the beginning. In a story that is not truly mine to tell, but I am a character in nonetheless. I am not a central figure, which is why I have never written about it. But it has become a part of my life and something that can, at times, consume me. As my emotions are not always my own. I’m sorry if this is going to end up being a long post. But I feel I need to get all of this out. Maybe in order for anyone who is reading this to truly understand. Maybe so that I can understand as well where these emotions come from.

The story, well, it probably starts when I was a kid. And my sister first entered my life. I was 8 years old and she was 6. Our mothers became best friends and, in turn, we became family. I have been protective of her from the beginning. I have always fiercely defended her. When I was 10, I punched a 12 year old boy because he would not stop making fun of her, even after I asked him to stop. I have never fought for myself. But I have always fought for her. Always.

Now that you understand that I can jump ahead quite a bit. My nephew’s father was a highly immature man and so he left the picture when Austin was only six months old. Which, in all honesty, was for the best. But as a fairly young mother, my sister was terrified of being a single parent. And so the first man that came into her life, she clung to him as if her life depended on it. In the beginning, I had no real issues with Adam. He was good with Austin and seemed to believe in the concept of family that we had. I didn’t have a good feeling when I was around him, but I chalked that up to me just being protective of my sister and not wanting her to settle for less than she deserved. Adam was quite a bit older than her and had a really good job so I went along with it because she seemed to be happy. At first.

Adam and my sister rushed their relationship fairly quickly and, within a year, they were married. There was just something about Adam that none of us liked, but we put up with it because he seemed to be what my sister wanted. Then, slowly, all of the truth about him came tumbling out. Finding its way to the surface for all of us to see. He was an alcoholic. He was addicted to gambling. He was emotionally abusive. He was controlling. He had nothing to his name, even though he had a six figure income. He hated us. All of it came to light. Slowly, then all at once we began to see him for what he truly was.

I can’t even count how many times I have received calls from my sister in the middle of the night. Hearing her cry breaks my heart. Every single time. I have had to go pick up her and the kids in the middle of the night so that they could get a night of peace at my house. I have held her as she cried. I have listened to her pour her heart out. I have seen the fear in her eyes. The words unsaid in what she does tell me. There have been countless threats of her leaving him. Of her wanting to break free. Of her wanting to get out. At one point she actually did leave him for a couple of months. And during that time, she became the person that I remember her being. Because that was the other thing, while she has been with Adam she has become someone different. Submissive. Dependent. For lack of another word, a victim. But when she left him, I saw some of her independence coming back. Her motivation to have a better life. But it was only short lived. She wanted to give her marriage “one more chance”. And so she returned to him. About a month later she got pregnant with my niece. And that’s when things really went downhill.

My sister then felt that she was “stuck” as she now had another child to feed. And she was completely dependent on Adam. And he, in turn, became even more controlling. The situation became even more of a nightmare.

A month ago there was yet another huge fight and we thought that this would finally be it. That my sister would finally leave. But, yet again, she said that she wanted to give it one more chance. She told me that she needed to know that she did everything she could to make her marriage work. That she wanted no regrets. And so all I could do was tell her that I would support her. But in my gut, I had a bad feeling. I get those sometimes. Just really bad feelings. And I never know where they come from. But they’re there. And I only know afterwards why. And I know now.

A week and a half ago, just as I was getting ready for bed, I noticed that I had four missed calls from my sister. Never a good sign. But it is also something I have become used to as she will do that when they get into a fight. So I called her back a couple of times, but she didn’t answer. I started getting really worried. I called one more time. She answered. Through tears she told me that she would need to call me back as she was with the police. My heart started racing. My adrenaline pumping. Fear raging through my mind. Was she ok? Were the kids ok? What the hell was going on?

She finally called me back. Adam finally crossed the line that I was hoping would never be crossed. To be perfectly frank, he beat the shit out of her. Mostly in the face. Punched her at least ten times. And attempted to strangle her. She was attempting to leave. And he finally did it. He finally had nothing more to lose. And he crossed that final line between emotional abuse and physical abuse.

So here’s where my emotions come in. I want to kill him. No, I’m not going to. But I have so much hate towards him that I can’t even think about it because I can’t control the feeling. Like I said at the beginning, I have always protected her. With no regard for myself. But this, this I could never protect her from. Over the last three years I have listened to her. Tried to give her advice. Tried to get her to see the truth of her situation. But as I looked at the bruises on her face, the bruises on her neck, her eyes almost completely swollen shut, none of that mattered. I had to walk into a back room and close the door so she could not see or hear me break down crying. I have known heartbreak before. But nothing like this. To see her so damaged and broken, it broke me. I could not stop this. And so the emotions course through me. And when I try and think about them, to break them down into their components, I find that I can’t. There is just too much. I have never known anger like this. I am not naturally an angry person. But this, this is something else entirely. I know anyone would have trouble if they were faced with this. But me, I can’t control the emotions. The rage. The hate. The pain. The sadness. It’s all a mess inside. And nothing about this is ordinary.

There’s so much to tell that I don’t even know where to start. Honestly. I feel like the last couple weeks have been a haze of extreme lows and highs. And everything in between. There are moments of clarity. And moments of despair. But I guess I’ll start from the beginning. Or as close to it as I can come.

I discussed in earlier posts how much was going on in my life at one time. It was overwhelming. And I knew that it was. But even then, I didn’t fully grasp how damaging it had become to me. The girl from North Carolina (Kayla) had been distant for weeks. But was starting to text me and attempt to come back into my life. It messed me up inside because I did not know what to do. My heart was struggling with my mind. And with every text, the words cut deeper into me. We had discovered that the tumor was inside my sister’s ovary. She was going to need surgery to completely remove her left ovary. One of my really good friends and I had had a falling out. It was a mess of a situation. And even that is an understatement. She was living with me and in the span of a couple texts our entire friendship had been blown up and in the course of two days she removed herself entirely from my house and, at the time, my life. I was destroyed. I hate people leaving. And I was facing all of this at a time when I was extremely emotionally fragile as I was still dealing with the reality of watching a woman kill herself. I thought I could handle it all. I thought I was ok. But really what I was doing was shoving everything so deep down because I couldn’t deal with it. I couldn’t deal with any of it. And especially not all at once. I tried every coping mechanism I knew and had been taught. But I was a bomb waiting to explode.

Three weeks ago to the day, that bomb finally exploded. I was broken about my sister. I was upset about Kayla. I was hurt about my friendship. I was lost within myself. And so I made the decision to visit my friend at the bar she works at when I got off work. I then got a text from two other friends, as it was one of their birthdays, and so I decided that I would meet up with them later on in the night. I didn’t eat much that day as my anxiety was too high so I wasn’t hungry. But I drank. A lot. More than I realized. And, for reasons that are still unknown to me and my friends, I decided to leave the bar. The next thing I remember is hanging from my seatbelt in my car. Somehow I got myself out and crashed to the bottom of my car. You see, I had flipped my car and was at the bottom of a hill. I was in and out of consciousness and only vaguely remember the firemen getting there and telling me that they would get me out. My car was so damaged that they had to cut me out. After that everything is very fuzzy and jumbled.

I don’t remember anything about the accident. I really don’t. It’s all just a blank in my head. It is only partially because of the alcohol, but mostly because I had a severe concussion. They told me that the only reason I escaped with only minor injuries was because I had been wearing my seatbelt. Otherwise they are convinced that I would have died. To say that I am lucky is an understatement.

I have done a lot of soul searching these last couple weeks. I know I need to make changes in my life. And have begun that process. I don’t know why I survived. I don’t know why I’m not in prison because my blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit. But somehow, for some reason, I’m here. I got a second chance. The problem is, all of the broken pieces are still inside. And I am attempting to put them back together. I blocked North Carolina from my phone so that I can no longer receive text messages from her. She wasn’t good in my life and continuing to receive her texts would just continue to mess me up inside. I now have a girlfriend. I have technically been talking to her for just about a month and a half, but we only became official last week. She stood by me after the accident and has continued to be an amazing addition to my life. She also has a five year old daughter who has changed my life in ways I never thought imaginable. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to be a parent. But I do know that I am willing to do anything for her. They both have added so much goodness to my life. They have enriched me. And I think they are also part of my second chance. I think they were meant to be my second chance at the life I have always wanted. I don’t know if I’m strong enough. But what I do know is that with them, I am willing to try with everything I have. I am here for a reason. That much was proven to me. And I want to find out the why. After all, it is not the destination that matters, it is the journey. And my journey continues on.

I watched a woman kill herself and I continue to have flashbacks of it. I haven’t been able to sleep. Because everytime I close my eyes I see her looking at me. She’s haunting me. And telling me that I am just like her.

A friendship that I once thought was so “different”, is currently crashing down around me. And I don’t know if the pieces can ever fit back together.

The girl that set me up to fall for her, did not follow through with catching me. Words seem to have been just that, words. I don’t even know how to put into words what is currently going on with that situation. Except that I fell and am now just lost and confused. With no light at the end of the tunnel. Nor do I know how long the tunnel is.

My sister has cancer. She may also lose everything she has today as her husband is most likely going to lose his job. And he is the sole provider in their family. My nephew and niece, who are the complete center of my world, may not have a home when the sun goes down tonight.

The waves continue to crash around me. Getting bigger and stronger. Pushing me down with each progression. As I struggle just to get up from my knees. And all I want to do is just breathe.

I really don’t want to write about this right now. It’s still way too fresh. But I feel that I should. Because otherwise I will never write about it. Or talk about it again. I will bottle it inside with everything else that resides in there. It will come to me in nightmares and moments of emotional upheaval. But I won’t talk about it. So, here I am talking about. Hopefully this helps. Fuck, I hope it helps take it away from my shattered heart. I will divulge every moment of this event in hopes that it will purge it from my mind.

I work in an office building where the first 11 floors are a parking garage. I hardly ever go onto the parking garage floors except during the summertime. Because I work across the street from a minor league baseball field. So during the summer I’ll go to the 11th floor where you can have a perfect view of the field and I’ll watch some of the games on my lunch. But during the winter time I hardly ever go there. Well, I have been feeling so broken lately that today on my break I went to the 11th floor to just get some fresh air. I wish I could take that decision back.

I watched a woman commit suicide today. When I walked onto the floor I walked over to the edge so that I could look down at the river that flows next to my building. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. I turned and saw a woman standing on the ledge holding on the guardrail. I called out to her and she looked me straight in the eyes. Then, she let go. I couldn’t get to her in time. I looked down and saw her lifeless body on the sidewalk. Blood everywhere.

Even saying it now, it sounds like a movie. One of the moments where time stops and everything feels in slow motion. But unfortunately this was real. And I couldn’t get to her in time. The look on her face, in her eyes, is replaying in my mind. Because I know that look. I’ve had that look. The look of giving up. Of desperation. Of deep rooted pain. I know that look. And in that one second in which she looked at me, she gave up. She let go.

To be honest, I don’t really know what I’m feeling right now. I was shaking most of the day. Now, I just feel numb. Like my body cycled through too many emotions during the day and now has just shut down. I just wish I could stop replaying it in my mind. I don’t know that woman’s name. I don’t know her story or what led her to that point. But I know what she felt in that moment. I just wish I had been able to get to her. I know this isn’t on me. I know she had made her choice long before I crossed her path, however brief it might have been. I just wish I had been able to get to her. I wish she wouldn’t have let go.

Well, here’s the broken part of the BPD. Here’s the ugliness. I try and hide it from everyone in my life. Even from you. But, here it is. Maybe it’s time I bring a little more truth into this blog. And the truth is, I don’t want to be here anymore. It hurts too much to be here. I live my life for everyone else. I hide so much of myself from the world because I don’t want them to know what truly lives inside of me. I protect my loved ones because I don’t want them to know the truth. I want to protect them from all of this ugliness. I never want them to know this. But here it is. I can go from being completely fine to being shattered in pieces in five minutes. Read all you want about BPD. Every article you can find. Nothing can explain what this feels like. This constant ache inside that nothing can ever feel. Feeling so many emotions that you feel like you’re basically going to jump out of your skin because you can’t handle it. No words on a piece of paper can ever come close to explaining what it feels like to want to die because you can no longer handle the hurt inside. I fight. Every single fucking day I fight. But for what? Just to make it through the day? Just to wake up so I can do it all over again? Do you even know what that feels like? I am an internal borderline. Some call it a “quiet borderline”. Whatever you wanna call it, I am more broken inside then I will ever be able to put into words. I live for other people. I don’t know how to live for myself. But I live for them. For their happiness. But in an instant that can change. I think they don’t care. Don’t text me back and I think you hate me. Don’t talk to me as much as you normally do, I think you no longer love me. That’s the fucking reality. But i never say it. I keep all this shit inside. Because I know it’s exactly that, shit. It’s my own mind, my own emotions betraying me. And I feel them all. Over and over and over. There’s no end to them. Never. So I want to protect the people I care about. I want to shade them from all of this darkness. They would be so much better off without me. That’s my reality. The people I love the most in this world, I want them to be free of me. Because this, this is a fucking ugly reality. And no one should have to live through it.

She is beginning to consume my thoughts. In all truth, she has for quite some time. Not quite ready to use her name is that would make it very real. A very real part of my story. So for now, I will call her K. The girl in North Carolina. The one who, against all odds, has captured my attention. All of it. I could downplay what is occurring. But this is the place where I promised to lay bare all of my dirty little secrets. So I will not lie to you. Any more that I can lie to myself. I feel for her. I feel a lot. In ways that should not be happening. Because I still have yet to see her in person. I still do not know what it feels like to hold her in my arms. But still, I feel.

I think that it is because of the distance that this relationship, because let’s be honest that’s what it is, is getting to me the way that it is. All we currently have is communication. Which has always been lacking in every previous relationship that I have had. Even though thoughts and emotions constantly flow through me, I am bad at communication. Sometimes it is because I am scared to share what goes through my mind. What fills my heart. Sometimes it is because it is too much for anyone to know. But sometimes it is because I can’t find the words to express how I am feeling. I can’t put words to exactly what it is inside me. So in every relationship I move fast and make a person fall for me and we proceed from there. But every time, the communication throughout the relationship is lacking. But this, well all we have is communication. It is the only thing connecting us. And to see her name appear on my phone, it gives me butterflies. It puts an instant smile on my face. Even now, over two months later. She still gets to me. And I don’t know exactly what that means. I want her. I need her. I crave to be next to her. But then there are the doubts. The questions. The fears. Because she is 1600 miles away. An entire country separates us. And how can I fall in love with someone who I have not only seen, but I can’t drive to in a single day.

My friends, well, they’re concerned. They have seen me destroyed by love. By people. They do not want that to happen again. Some believe she is just using me as a distraction from her left. That this is never meant to be real. That we will never truly meet. There are those who believe that she is hiding things from me. Because with some on the other side of the country, it is so easy to hide so much of yourself. I mean, look at me, I’m hiding my BPD. I’m able to hide it because she does not have to see me cry at night. I do not have to explain certain behavior to her. Because she does not need to know the reality of my day to day life. It’s not that I hide everything from her. But I have hidden the worst parts of myself. With her, I’m able to be the person that I want the world to know. Not all good. She knows most everything about me. Just not the BPD. Not that. But if I am able to hide that from her, as my friends say, imagine what she could be hiding from me. And then there are those that think maybe there is a chance for us. However they are cautious and worried. I get where they all are coming from. I do understand. If this was someone else living this story and telling me about it, well I’d probably feel the same way. I’d tell them all the same things that I am being told. And hoped that they would listen. But I’m not listening. My heart won’t let me. This feels like it is meant for something. I just wish I knew what.

And as for her, well she opens up with me. I know things about her that I know, I know, she does not share with others. Because I have heard her talk to others. And it’s not how she talks to me. And that’s the side that no one else sees. Or can understand. I do not feel all of these things on my own. It is a shared experience. I just don’t know where I am supposed to go from here. Do I continue to feel? Even though this could end badly. Do I do what my friends are telling me to do and just try not to get to serious? But it is already serious. So what do I do? I know what my heart is telling me. But my heart is not always right. My heart has led me to some very bad places. My heart has been broken too bad by decisions that felt right at the time. So what do I do this time? I don’t want to lose her. But I also don’t want to end up destroyed. Again. I can’t go through that again. Not right now. But what if she’s the one thing keeping me together? To love means you open yourself up to someone. You give them the knife that can cut right through you. And yet have the faith that they will never use it. Love is always a risk. For anyone. But what do I do when I cannot absorb the hurt like anyone else? What if I feel more than most. And hurt more as well. Because that’s what I am. But maybe, in this time and place, she is the one that is meant to put the broken pieces back together. She has already started the process. She says she has duct tape for the rest. Maybe duct tape will do the job that nothing else has been able to. Maybe it is worth the risk of being ripped apart. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being stupid. That’s the problem. I can’t even trust my own feelings. That’s the worst part. I can never trust myself or what I feel. But just maybe, in this time and place……